The Ring on Her Finger (29 page)

Eventually, he pushed her gently away, but only far enough so he could gaze into her eyes. “I love you,” he said, his words lacking not one iota of conviction. Then, “I love you,” he said again, in case she missed it the first time.

Lucy told herself he was only saying it because she was the first woman he’d made love to in so long. He would have loved any woman in that moment. But something in his voice made her think he really meant it. Max loved her. He loved her. Somehow, that made her believe everything, eventually, would be all right.

“I love you, too,” she said. “Oh, Max, I never thought I would find anyone who—” She halted when she realized there weren’t enough words to describe all the empty places inside her he had filled. So she only settled on repeating, “I love you, too.”

He pulled her to him for another lusty kiss, then tucked her head beneath his chin. “Next time we do this, we’re going to be in a bed, and we’re both going to be naked.”

Lucy nodded as she snuggled close to him. “Sounds good to me. So when is next time?”

“Depends,” he said.

“On what?”

“On how long it takes to get to your bedroom and get me naked.”

Normally, when Nathaniel drove down Highway 42, he was filled with a mellow sort of serenity that made him happy just to be alive. Supple green fields were checkered by white plank fences, dotted by stately homes or quaint farmhouses, arrayed with scampering horses. Northern Oldham County was a peaceful little parcel of land, to be sure, and he’d spent the better part of his life here. He loved Kentucky. It was in his blood.

For the past two weeks, though, he’d been loving it even more, something he wouldn’t have thought possible. The hills seemed greener, the sky bluer. The air felt balmier, smelled sweeter, felt cleaner. Life, in general, just seemed better. And there had been only one new development in his life that could have generated this new feeling of satisfaction. Of appreciation. Of happiness.

Rosemary Shaugnessy. The object of a heinous wager to which he never should have agreed.

He urged the accelerator toward the floor, propelling the Jaguar to seventy on the deserted two-lane country highway, as befitted the Bad Boy of the Thoroughbred Racing Set. Nathaniel was a bad boy. He was the baddest of them all. Even if, lately, he hadn’t felt like he was living down to his reputation. Even if, lately, he hadn’t felt all that bad. In fact, lately—since that first night he encountered Rosemary in the Coves’ kitchen—he’d felt surprisingly good. Every encounter with the Coves’ nanny since had made him feel better. And after that kiss Monday afternoon...

That kiss Monday afternoon. He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. And it hadn’t even been one of his better efforts. As he’d lowered his head to Rosemary’s that day, he’d felt as uncertain and graceless as a thirteen-year-old boy, fearful she might push him away. But his fear hadn’t stemmed from the prospect of losing a two-million-dollar racehorse if she rejected him. His fear had stemmed from the simple fact that Rosemary might not like him. He hadn’t given a thought to his horse that day. His head had been too filled with thoughts of Rosemary.

But she had liked him. He had kissed her. A chaste kiss by anyone’s standards, but one that set his heart racing and made his blood simmer. That kiss, so innocent, had thrown his entire consciousness into a tailspin. With one kiss, Rosemary had brought him to his knees.

It made no sense. Nathaniel had never been this preoccupied by thoughts of a woman. But Rosemary had gone beyond a preoccupation. She’d crawled inside him and taken up residence in a part of him he would have sworn would be empty forever. The crazy thing was, he liked her. He couldn’t remember ever liking a woman before. Yeah, he’d been tempted by them, fascinated by them, bewitched, bothered, and bewildered by them. But he couldn’t recall ever truly, genuinely liking a woman. Yet he did like Rosemary.

He liked her a lot.

He liked her smiles and her laughter. He liked her irreverence and her wry sense of humor. He liked her unqualified love for a little girl who wasn’t even hers. He liked how good he felt when he was with her and the way he caught fire when she kissed him back. He even liked the small gold cross she wore around her neck.

And he had bet Justin Cove he could bed her in exchange for a pile of money.

Nathaniel fully intended to have Rosemary tonight, even if his reasons for doing so had nothing to do with Justin’s wager. He would still do his best to seduce her tonight. He would try with all his heart.

All he could do was hope like hell she told him no.

The moment Rosemary set foot inside Nathaniel’s house, she felt edgy. Maybe because she wasn’t sure what to expect from the evening ahead. Maybe because she wasn’t sure what Nathaniel expected. Maybe because she wasn’t sure what she expected of herself. Or maybe it was just due to a sense of déjà
vu that wound through her.

She told herself she was being silly. His house was nothing like the one where she worked back in Derry. Then again, the Somersets’ house was built before Kentucky was even settled, so perhaps it wasn’t a fair comparison to make. Their house was nestled in the rich, green hills of Northern Ireland, a three-story gothic mansion originally constructed for a British earl. It was drafty and damp, no matter the weather outside, and there were nights when Rosemary expected ghosts to come drifting out of the walls.

Nathaniel’s house, though certainly large for one person, was modest by comparison. It was only one floor, though that one floor probably covered at least an acre, so far did it sprawl in so many directions. And where the Somersets’ furnishings had been passed down for generations—probably since Camelot, some of it—Nathaniel’s tastes were more contemporary and less lavish.

And Nathaniel himself bore little similarity to Phillip Somerset. Phillip had been a boy of sixteen, not even a full year older than Rosemary, when they became involved. He’d been young and exuberant and full of romantic notions about turning his back on his family and heritage and taking her to the New World—where he was convinced they could be happy without a penny, since his family would disown him once he made his intentions known. And he had been completely uninhibited in telling her how much he loved her and wanted her and needed her.

Until the day his father caught them together in Phillip’s bed and fired both Rosemary and her aunt Brigid on the spot. He told Phillip if he ever consorted with a Catholic whore again, he could leave his family and his home and never return. That was when Phillip’s exuberance and idealism cooled. That was when he turned his back on her—literally—and left her naked and alone, forced to dress and leave under his father’s watchful eye.

Nathaniel, on the other hand...

Well. He wasn’t exactly boyish or exuberant or full of romantic notions. And although he was no more likely to turn his back on his wealth or heritage than he was to drop his pants and sing “Danny Boy” in front of his friends, she also sensed a decency in him that would prevent him from abandoning a woman naked and alone. Still, like Phillip, Nathaniel had a way of letting her know he wanted her. But where Phillip had resorted to promises and vows that he didn’t keep, Nathaniel did it just by leveling a certain look upon her.

And by kissing her with a quiet sort of desire that reached deep down to her soul. It was a desire she was certain could be stirred to passion with little provocation. The loving and needing part, however... Well, she supposed Phillip never really loved or needed her, either. It was still too early for either of those things to be present in Nathaniel. Even if Rosemary had felt a few twinges of both herself.

He was even more handsome than usual tonight, dressed in dark trousers and a long-sleeved, charcoal T-shirt, in deference to a change in the weather. Rosemary, too, had dressed for the dip in temperature, opting for a ruby red dress of jersey knit, a fringed black shawl that had belonged to her aunt Brigid, and flat black skimmers.

Still, she felt anxious about the evening ahead.

“Would you like something to drink before dinner?” he asked as he led her into a room that appeared to be a den of sorts.

It was obviously a room he used frequently, because it was far more comfortable than the others they passed through to get here. The furnishings were abundant, and the decor was more informal. The theme was—what a surprise—horsy. The walls were dark forest green, hung here and there with paintings of exquisite Thoroughbreds, and the furniture was fashioned of chestnut-colored, button-backed leather that looked butter soft from frequent use. A massive oriental rug splashed with rich jewel tones spanned much of the hardwood floor, and one wall was lined from floor to ceiling with shelves that were crammed with books. A quick inspection told Rosemary they dealt mostly with—surprise again—equine husbandry, horse training, and the business of Thoroughbred racing. An ornate mantelpiece played host to a dozen or so trophies, some of them quite large. A showcase in the corner was filled with more trophies and a riot of colorful ribbons.

But the room’s greatest feature was a wall of windows that looked out onto a green, green pasture framed by a half dozen maple trees. The sun hung fat and red over the hills in the distance, staining the sky with pink and orange and gold. Rosemary had never seen sunsets as spectacular as the ones she had witnessed since coming to Kentucky. This evening’s was no exception. Just as she was about to turn away from the scene, a trio of dark horses cantered across it, and she smiled.

When she turned and saw Nathaniel’s expectant expression, she recalled he had asked her a question that required an answer. “Only if you’re having something.”

“Good Irish whiskey, as usual,” he told her. He moved to a bar tucked into another corner of the room. “What will you have?”

Rosemary wasn’t much of a drinker, so she only said, “A little wine, I guess, if you have it.”

“Red or white?”

“Red, please.”

She watched as he ducked behind the bar and pulled out two glasses, filling one with ruby red and splashing two fingers of amber into the other. It was indeed good Irish whiskey, she noted from the label. Probably the same brand his grandfather had enjoyed.

“I thought we could eat dinner in about half an hour,” he said as he crossed the room and handed her her wine. “Everything’s ready. Just needs to be heated up.”

“You have a lovely home,” she said as she accepted the glass from him.

“I guess it’s all right.” He gave the room a quick once-over, as if he hadn’t noticed it before.

Rosemary chuckled at the comment. “All right,” she echoed. “Very few people live this way, Nathaniel. Most would say it goes a bit beyond ‘all right.’”

“I’ll tell my decorator you said so. Me, I really had little to do with it.”

“Did you grow up in a house like this?”

He shook his head. “Not this big. My father’s house was more like the one the Garamonds live in, an old farmhouse. But I grew up less than fifteen miles from where I live now.”

“And I grew up two thousand miles from where I live now. So far away,” she added softly. “And not just in geography.”

“I imagine Derry was a rough place when you were a kid.”

“Oh, yes,” Rosemary agreed. “Not at all what you’re used to.”

“You said the other day that you lost your family to the Troubles.” His voice was laced with uncertainty, as if he wasn’t sure she would be comfortable discussing her past.

But she was all right with it. How were they supposed to get to know each other if they didn’t discuss such things? “My parents were both activists,” she told him. “Members of the IRA.”

The admission clearly astonished him. “You know, a lot of people would say your parents were terrorists, not activists.”

His comment put Rosemary’s back up, though she knew she shouldn’t be surprised. People who hadn’t lived the life rarely understood it. “I suppose I can see where some people might form that opinion,” she conceded coolly. “People who don’t have the facts. Or people who don’t like to accept the facts. Or people who don’t agree with the facts. Which one might you be?”

“I don’t really have an opinion,” he told her. “I don’t know enough about any of it to have formed one.”

“You have to have an opinion where I come from,” she told him. “If you don’t, you stand alone. And you don’t want to stand alone where I come from.”

“So who did you stand with?”

“I’m Catholic,” she said without hesitation. “I stood with the Provos. You must understand, Nathaniel, there’s a long history of terrible things there, a lot of reasons for why people feel and act the way they do. When I was barely a teenager, I fell in with a local group, because I was so strong in my convictions. But I only stayed with them long enough to realize that I, personally, wasn’t cut out for bombing Saracens and ambushing soldiers. That doesn’t mean, though, that I faulted them for the things they did. I didn’t. I understood completely. And I sympathized. Oh, my, he’s shocked now,” she said with a nervous laugh when she saw Nathaniel’s expression change to one of clear alarm.

His words were clipped when he replied, “Yeah, well, you’ll have to forgive me if I have trouble seeing you strapping on an M-16 and lobbing Molotov cocktails.”

“We called them Armelites, and I was never comfortable strapping one on,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I only lobbed one Molotov cocktail that missed its mark by a good fifteen feet. But after a while...” She expelled a tired sound. “I guess I just got tired of the lot of them. The Provos and the Orangemen, the Republicans and the Unionists, Sinn Fein and the RUC... There are people on both sides who think their hatred is justified. But hatred is hatred, and I got tired of all of it. I just wanted out. When Aunt Brigid died, there was no reason for me to stay.”

Nathaniel shook his head, still clearly having trouble taking it all in. “I just can’t picture you in that setting. You’re too...”

“What?” she asked when he didn’t finish.

He moved his hand to the gold cross around her neck. As he had that night at the restaurant, he dipped his index finger beneath it, skimming his knuckle over the sensitive skin of her throat. Just as it had then, Rosemary’s heart kicked into a ragged rhythm that sent her blood racing at a dizzying speed.